


Parade of the Dead

by Neurotoxia



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Emotional Baggage, Gen, Introspection, Mentions of Violence and Death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-09-04
Updated: 2012-09-04
Packaged: 2017-11-13 14:16:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 800
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/504376
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Neurotoxia/pseuds/Neurotoxia
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sometimes, John felt the ghosts of his past trailing behind him, breathing down his neck.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Parade of the Dead

**Author's Note:**

> Written for September 06: "Excuse me, but can I be you for a while?" at the 31_days community on LJ. This turned out a lot darker in its undertones than I first intended it to be, but then again, I have a tendency to do that. Any comments and concrit are encouraged; I'm still new to writing Sherlock and always willing to improve!

_The sacrifice of others walk within_  
 _The battlefields of death embracing him_  
 _The courage from beyond surrounds_  
 _One’s soul --_  
 _Walking side by side though_  
 _Graves unknown_  
 _**Black Label Society - Crazy Horse**_

 

John had always failed at _not_ being emotionally invested. It had been a blessing and a curse and shown most clearly when stuck in Afghanistan for all those years: the anxiety when hiding behind ruins tattered by explosions, trying to retrieve one of his comrades without knowing whether he was too late to help; the feeling of a cold hand wrapping around his heart when he had to give up on saving someone: when no amount of gauze, morphine and needles could stop the other from bleeding out under his hands.  
  
John always carried around a piece of the grief of those around him: those gone into katatonia from seeing their best friend getting torn to pieces by an IED; those stricken with agony cradling the body of their eight-year-old child who had just happened to be at the worst place at the worst time; those who exsanguinated onto sheets in a base hospital while clutching the blood-stained photo of a wife or husband and had not yet accepted their fate; those with the resigned look in their eyes when calling an official to relay the numbers of men and women fallen for Queen and Country.  
  
John found strength in it to go on but it also weighed down his heart with the force of a warship.

He had been compassionate before the war -- seeing his father wither away under the curse of cancer, leaving his mother behind broken and lonely. John wanted to make a difference, spare people the kind of pain his family had had to go through and had not come out of unmarred. Despite all their differences, it hurt John to see his sister slip further and further into the pitfalls of alcohol and the only thing he could do to spare his heart more pain was to stay away from Harry as much as he could without feeling like the worst brother in the world.

The weight of the combined emotion of his past and Afghanistan had very nearly brought John to his knees -- ready to just hand in his resignation at attempting a life worthwhile and giving in to gambling and depression, the ghosts of his past trailing behind, threatening to suck all life out of his bones.

But then, Sherlock entered his life.  
  
Oblivious and ignorant about propriety, common courtesy and social cues. It was a natural progression for John to become the Consulting Detective’s heart: When Sherlock gleefully spotted an interesting murder in the papers, it was John’s job to read between the lines and see the single mother winding up dead in her locked bedroom, leaving behind a likely traumatized four-year-old girl that was going to go into foster care with NHS-appointed psychiatrists trying to soothe the scars on her soul. Sherlock saw a puzzle, John the victims. The times when Sherlock was too impatient to wait for a man to stop crying over the hit-and-run that had killed his fiancé, it was John who handed out the tissues and listened to the other’s grief-stricken recollections of happier times before he had calmed down enough to be grilled for information by Sherlock. Silently, the fiancé joined the ghosts of the girl, Harry, the dead soldiers, witnesses and bleeding Afghan children. _Parade of the dead._

Some of them threw accusing looks at the back of John’s head -- he could feel it. Soldiers for whom he had arrived minutes too late, widowed spouses who resented that John still lived while their significant others had to die; the deadly results of his mistakes -- Soo Lin Yao whom he had abandoned in a panicked flurry to save his best friend, his lifeline Sherlock Holmes.

Sherlock shielded his heart carefully -- he was the ribcage, the muscles and the skin that protected the vulnerable but vital organ. He stopped the worst things from getting too close or filtered the horrible events with his cold demeanor so that John felt justified and right in caring. Sherlock saw facts, not stories and bitter fate. He could shut it all out if it didn’t belong in the very small circle of those he cared about. For a man who had seen and felt too much, Sherlock was the umbrella in heavy rain.

Sometimes, when the horror stories became too much, John sat limply in his armchair while his best friend paced around the sitting room. Wishing for a new case to occupy his mind with, having deleted memories and fates of victims from his hard drive only to store the cold hard facts, John wished he could be Sherlock, just for a bit. Just to delete it all, too.


End file.
